31–40 of 41 posts
A riddle? Did someone ever really think that this was a british dish and that no one in Italy could come up with a tomato+meat sauce?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
that's right, they are american. Sicilian immigrants could barely afford beef in their native Sicily, so when they started having a little more money in their pockets in America, they started adding beef to everything. Which is where spaghetti with meatballs comes from as well. No italian has ever had spaghetti with meatballs.
America isn't the only country to have had lots of immigration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italians_in_the_United_Kingdom
Changing the pasta type is fine, but when you add ingredients that drastically change the taste of the dish you better give it a new name.
I happen to currently live in Bologna, I've had the local tagliatelle al ragù and all I can say is that it makes so much more sense to have it this way instead of using spaghetti - it's simply better.
Food snobs like those really get on my nerves. I mean, it's one thing when one starts adding cream to carbonara (or make it with just cream, like they do in the UK) but swapping spaghetti for tagliatelle is hardly a crime. And like the article said, people in Italy are not that anal about the type of pasta - ragù is one of the universal sauces you serve with anything. I grew up eating Spaghetti al Ragù on sundays in my local trattoria.
Besides, ragù alla bolognese is only ONE type of ragù. There are others, even if we just to stick to the traditional ones, which are eaten with all sort of pasta shapes: hare ragù (pappardelle), sicilian ragù (eaten with small ring pasta), neapolitan ragù (maccheroni or rigatoni), lamb ragù, pork ragù...
And throwing a hissy fit for adding a bit of garlic, surely, it doesn't go well with the sauce, but it's hardly a crime against humanity.
So if the official research states that you can vary the sauce to include oregano, basil, and garlic, optionally adding various cheeses, and you can vary the pasta between tagliatelle (fresh egg pasta) and dried spaghetti (and you can vary the name between spaghetti al ragù , spaghetti bolognese or spaghetti alla bolognese ) then that's really a pretty wide range of dishes. Interesting that restaurants focused on ser…
So if the official research states that you can vary the sauce to include oregano, basil, and garlic, optionally adding various cheeses, and you can vary the pasta between tagliatelle (fresh egg pasta) and dried spaghetti (and you can vary the name between spaghetti al ragù , spaghetti bolognese or spaghetti alla bolognese ) then that's really a pretty wide range of dishes. Interesting that restaurants focused on ser…
Only in Italy, where slightly different shaped pasta magically means a completely different meal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's note that grammatically 'alla', 'al', etc. is 'at/in/towards' + 'the', but in this idiomatic use gives the meaning in the parent comment.
Yes and no, it is "worse" than that. In this particular use (for bolognese or pescatora, amatriciana, etc.) "a/al/alla" means "in the style of", BUT when it is pasta al ragù (al pesto, al pomodoro, etc., i.e. other main ingredients) the "a/al/alla" means "with". And we have also our own exceptions, one says "Pappardelle sul cinghiale" (pappardelle is yet another type of pasta), literally "pappardelle on the hog", BUT…
Mai sentito parlare prima di pappardelle sul cinghiale, è un uso abbastanza dialettale mi sa.
Ovviamente non si può non concordare sul ragù. ;)
> Controversy surrounding the dish resurfaced last month, when Antonio Carluccio became the latest in a long line of chefs to complain that one of Britain’s favourite “Italian” dishes did not, in fact, exist in Italy Food snobs like those really get on my nerves. I mean, it's one thing when one starts adding cream to carbonara (or make it with just cream, like they do in the UK) but swapping spaghetti for tagliatelle…